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We know quite a bit about many cultures predating the printing press. Ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, India. The Bible predates the printin

We know quite a bit about many cultures predating the printing press. Ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, India. The Bible predates the printing press, so do Homer, Aristotle, Caesar, Buddha, the Vedas, and Confucius. Arthurian England is not documented because it’s a made-up collection of legends. The Vikings left written Eddas, poems, and a body of Norse mythology, and we actually know quite a lot about Viking history.

WalterBright 6y ago
> Arthurian England is not documented because it’s a made-up collection of legends. It's not documented because nobody at the time wrote anything down. Nobody knows who the kings of England were in those days. Nobody knows if the Arthurian legend is based on a real king or not. We know several orders of magnitude about historical periods after the printing press than before, and the same goes for literate societies vs illiterate ones. Computers and the internet means the future will know far more about us than about our parents.
- gregjor 6y ago
  Regarding Arthurian England, Bede wrote his history of England less than 200 years after Arthur supposedly ruled, and before Arthur appears in written stories. We know about Athelstan and Cnut, because people did write things down. Britain still had Roman cities at the supposed time of Arthur. There may be something to the Arthur story but it’s not accepted as history. We do know a lot about the period just before from Roman documents, and have documentation of other rulers from the period. Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. The Lord of the Rings is just as long as the Arthur stories, and just as vivid, but not real.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. Jeez, I never said they did. They're better than a vacuum, though. Many suspicious historical accounts have been verified by later archaeological discoveries. For example, some accounts of Jamestown have turned out to be correct, and the descriptions of Richard III's curved spine turned out to be correct, and not just propaganda by his detractors. I also know that the history of England entered the "Dark Ages" after the Romans left, not because they were literally dark, but because little is known about it. 200 years is a long time. The paucity of records: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity is where the legends come from.
- gregjor 6y ago
  > Nobody knows who the kings of England were in those days. Yes, lots of people do know who they were. There was no “England” in those days, but historians know the kings and queens of the kingdoms of Essex, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, etc. that would coalesce into England later. https://www.historyofengland.net/kings-and-queens/the-dark-ages-450-1066-introduction https://www.historyofengland.net/kings-and-queens/the-dark-a...
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Ironically, your cite mentions King Arthur: "A West Saxon expansion westwards is halted for some years by perhaps a King Arthur one of the last Romanised Britians in England."
    - gregjor 6y ago
      The irony is that the little we might know about Arthur comes from written records. Perhaps king of some Britons, not king of all Britain.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        Not ironic at all. The more writing that was done, the more we know and don't have to guess from trash heaps, building foundations, and graves. This seems patently obvious.
    - InfiniteRand 6y ago
      It’s funny when I was in college the Battle of Badon = Arthur theory was very popular and I got the impression it had overtaken the let’s treat Arthur as a collection of myths school of thought, but I feel like myth school of thought has more steam these days

WalterBright 6y ago

> Arthurian England is not documented because it’s a made-up collection of legends. It's not documented because nobody at the time wrote anything down. Nobody knows who the kings of England were in those days. Nobody knows if the Arthurian legend is based on a real king or not. We know several orders of magnitude about historical periods after the printing press than before, and the same goes for literate societies vs illiterate ones. Computers and the internet means the future will know far more about us than about our parents.

gregjor 6y ago
Regarding Arthurian England, Bede wrote his history of England less than 200 years after Arthur supposedly ruled, and before Arthur appears in written stories. We know about Athelstan and Cnut, because people did write things down. Britain still had Roman cities at the supposed time of Arthur. There may be something to the Arthur story but it’s not accepted as history. We do know a lot about the period just before from Roman documents, and have documentation of other rulers from the period. Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. The Lord of the Rings is just as long as the Arthur stories, and just as vivid, but not real.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > Written and printed records do not guarantee historical accuracy. Jeez, I never said they did. They're better than a vacuum, though. Many suspicious historical accounts have been verified by later archaeological discoveries. For example, some accounts of Jamestown have turned out to be correct, and the descriptions of Richard III's curved spine turned out to be correct, and not just propaganda by his detractors. I also know that the history of England entered the "Dark Ages" after the Romans left, not because they were literally dark, but because little is known about it. 200 years is a long time. The paucity of records: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#Historicity is where the legends come from.
gregjor 6y ago
> Nobody knows who the kings of England were in those days. Yes, lots of people do know who they were. There was no “England” in those days, but historians know the kings and queens of the kingdoms of Essex, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, etc. that would coalesce into England later. https://www.historyofengland.net/kings-and-queens/the-dark-ages-450-1066-introduction https://www.historyofengland.net/kings-and-queens/the-dark-a...
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Ironically, your cite mentions King Arthur: "A West Saxon expansion westwards is halted for some years by perhaps a King Arthur one of the last Romanised Britians in England."
  - gregjor 6y ago
    The irony is that the little we might know about Arthur comes from written records. Perhaps king of some Britons, not king of all Britain.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Not ironic at all. The more writing that was done, the more we know and don't have to guess from trash heaps, building foundations, and graves. This seems patently obvious.
  - InfiniteRand 6y ago
    It’s funny when I was in college the Battle of Badon = Arthur theory was very popular and I got the impression it had overtaken the let’s treat Arthur as a collection of myths school of thought, but I feel like myth school of thought has more steam these days